'Lost': 'Orientation: Ryan Station' wraps up its look at the show with specials guests Todd VanDerWerff and Noel Murray

FIFTYPENCE: "I think it was more the case that when Jack 'got wise' to being dead he realised that David wasn't real - any real emotions he felt were to do with the Island rather than this constructed existience (of which David was a part). And also that their 'moving on' was a result of their accumulated experiences in both the island and sideways universes - not just one or the other."

Hi Fiftypence! I'm glad I periodically go back a few blogs (in this case to the 24th) to see if any new comments have been added, otherwise I would have missed this comment since you weren't able to post it until the 30th. (But I fear most people don't feel that they "have to go back", so I always post on the most current thread... as contextually inappropriate as that admittedly sometimes is.)

Anyway, I kind of understand what you're saying, and don't completely disagree, but... actualy, I think I've rambled on long enough over the last week regarding how I feel about the ending, no need to repeat myself.

FIFTYPENCE: "He was so willing to detonate Jughead so that 815 never crashed and the Losties never met each other, when actually the crash was the most important/transformative (even 'best' arguably) event that any of these characters would experience in their lives."

Good point! I was thinking along those same lines this weekend when watching "The Incident". Jack was just so sure he was doing the right thing by setting off the bomb -- little did he know he was doing the right thing (transporting them Back To The Future) for the wrong reason (thinking he was going to get a do-over). As Biff Henderson used to say, "irony indeed!"

Okay, onto the more recent blogs and comments...

Your podcast sounds horrible but great discussion.

BOTN: "The actor who played Widmore had the best line."

I saw that too, and I was thinking the same thing (that he didn't know if Widmore was good or evil because Darlton shortchanged the character). One example: Wouldn't it have been nice to have seen the (alleged) scene where Jacob (allegedly) convinced Widmore of the error of his ways?!

BOTN: "...my KUDOS & SALUTATIONS to, one, Ryan McGee for a great job maintaining/adding to/enriching the LOST experience. It's rare that a blogger (calling you a blogger doesn't do you justice) can actually bring something to a television show. You should rest comfortably knowing that, at least for this writer, you've made this television series better than it actually was."

I second everything BOTN said, Ryan! (Although I hope BOTN will be unable to resist the urge to keep checking in here for at least a while yet!)

SCHMOKER: "Sample from very late in the show: 'This is Sayid. He was a torturer.' Man, I am so glad they reminded me of that. I had plumb forgot."

LOL! Nice to know those ABC promo monkeys went out on the same high note they came in on!

SCHMOKER: "Op/Con, I don't think the bomb ever went off. I think as Juliet was hitting it, the "sky lit up," as Rose said, and they flashed one last time."

My thoughts are similar, but I do think the bomb went off (because of the nice possibility that it was the incident we heard about in the season two orientation film), but since it was "only" the core atomic bomb, not the much more powerful hydrogen bomb, the island's special matter/light was able to mostly contain and harness the energy for time travel rather that let it be destructive.

MERRYESS: "...were "then and now" comments on several of the characters, which were humorous.

Hey, Merryess! :-) Thanks for the info and theories... very interesting. I watched Kimmel the first time, but I don't remember the "then and now" comments on the characters... though by that hour I was pretty zonked so I might have just missed it. I still find it interesting how the rebroadcast apparently only took two hours and five minutes instead of two and a half hours! I thought the number of commericals per hour was fixed -- but I guess not. (Or maybe the original broadcast had 25 minutes of non-paid ABC programming promos in it?)

RYAN: "In fact, I'm ready to do something that the characters in the show did in the final episode: let go."

I found the dual essay ("debate") very interesting and insightful, and it gave me a bit more appreciation of the sideways universe. But in the end if it is that easy for you to "let go", rather than (as in the case of many of the novels referred to in the show) making you want to read/experience it again, I think it says a lot about the quality of the sixth season even if you don't want to consciously look at it that way.

SMOKEMONSTERLOST: "Am I the only one that feels for the smoke monster?"

I agree with most of what you wrote. ("Nothing to see here folks... hurry, church is underway...)

NOTYETMEASURED: "For the viewers (and perhaps for many) Sideways didn't even exist until this season, and from Jack's perspective it didn't exist until the final 5 seconds... The Sideways world was a world of convenience for the writers and a world of sentimentality for the audience."

Very well put.

CAPTAIN: "I will remember their names and not be fooled again."

Aye, aye, cap'n! Same here (as I've previously indicated).

BUFFY FAN: "Well, the third time's the charm. I finally got it! I loved loved LOVED the enhanced finale (the captions really helped, for the most part), and the next morning, I felt happy and content -- still feel that way two days later."

Man, you're really making me regret that I didn't think to record the "enhanced" version. Can't believe the comments would help, but maybe so. (And if not, I'm sure they'd provide some good humor value -- like informing us that Sayid used to be a torturer!)

Okay, onto to finalreaderquestions dot mp3...

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (aka Mr Eko) pulled up next to the car I was in in Toronto on Saturday. He was really nice and very polite which is great 'cause my fellow car-mates and I were FREAKING OUT!! Reminded me of our LOST community and how incredibly much I'm going to miss this show and you all.

INDARLTONITRUST: "Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) pulled up next to the car I was in... He was really nice and very polite."

I'm glad to hear that since "Psalm 23" is one of my favorite episodes, and I was feeling a bit sad that in today's podcast he (once again) got a bit "dissed" for leaving the show when he did. (Frankly, if they were intending to simply use him [instead of Des] to "wake up" everyone in the purgaverse, I'm glad he left when he did. On the other hand, if him sticking around would truly allowed them to come up with a better ending to the series, I of course wish that he could have stayed.)

Regarding the podcast overall, I found it a bit frustrating to listen to four people who pretty much agree with each other without being able to interrupt and give an opposing view. Especially since I disagreed so often with the points being made! (Not suprising, I guess, since everyone was largely pro-sideways and pro-finale.)

The last few minutes made me glad I stuck with it, however. The point about "The Constant" not really being "The Constant" unless it's basically the only episode of lost you saw that week [and, ideally, you had to wait a week to see it after the previous episode], really hit home, and made me once again appreciate how fortunate I am to have seen almost all of LOST live.

(Although I also appreciate that I was also able to go back and watch the first three seasons on DVD, and I plan to watch the rest as well someday. And I also appreciate all the behind-the-scenes stuff on the DVDs.)

But most of the podcast was (once again) about tangential issues, not the story. And then finally after the 23 (out of 48) minute "intro" when we finally ask a reader question, it isn't a question about the story (surprise!) but another BS question like "what do you four wise wonderful people think will be the lasting legacy of the show", allowing several more minutes of tangential discussion. Frankly, given the name of the podcast, I was hoping to (finally) have some talk about all of the loose threads of the show!

So when somebody finally mentioned that the bomb exploding was presumably the cause of women not being able to have babies, even though I think that is one of the more obvious things that people have already surmised, I was happy because at least the story of LOST was finally being talked about!

It eventually dawned on my why you all are fairly happy with the finale and kind of disparage those who wanted/want more of a closure to the island timeline story -- it's because you are happy that half-arsed ending of the show has made it so easy for you to "let go" of LOST.

Contrast this attitude to how a few weeks ago everyone was excited to go back and re-watch the show after we know how it ends. Now, the same people who profess that the writers did a great job with season six and the finale are the same ones who are so proud that they have no enthusiasm for going back and re-watching the show! Whereas some of us would have preferred and ending that increased, rather than diminished, our desire to (as with a great novel) go back and re-experience the whole thing as soon as possible.

So, to justify your satisfaction with feeling like you can simply let it go, instead of admitting the ending really detracted from the story you come up with insipid simplifications that the people who wanted more of a complete story just don't realize that "it all comes down to what the island is, and that can't be answered". No, it doesn't all come down to that! There was a whole bunch more story that could have been told, if they hadn't chosen to spend so much time on the sideways universe (and limit themselves to six somewhat abbrevited seasons).

Of course, if I was a professional TV reviewer I might be inclined to forget about LOST too if I knew I had to try to get interested in other shows. But since I only have to watch shows I want to, and I know how seldom of show of LOST's quality comes along, I'm not happy that they cut the story short and resorted to a rather hokey clip-show finale.

On the positive side, I did a agree with some of the points made, such as how great it was that Des was confused that he didn't go back to the sideways world when he pulled the cap off.

But in general so often statements were made that I was wishing somebody was there to contest, instead of everyone mostly just agreeing with each other. ("The finale makes the show overall better", "what makes the finale work...", etc.)

Regarding the discussion of why Penny was included in the church even though other significant others (so to speak) weren't -- I really thought that was going somewhere, until it was simply dismissed because the ending "didn't have to be logical", it was basically a clip show (but don't call it a clip show!) for us to say goodbye to the characters. Uh, isn't a virtual clip show a way for the writers to take the easy way out? Wouldn't something more substantial be better? (After all, whenever we want to spend time with these characters again we can just pop in one of dozens of DVDs.) What Darlton gave us was the WORST kind of "fan service", not (as you all said) the best kind.

I really got the impression that you all are more worried about maintaining your status in the industry (junkets, celebrity interviews, etc.) rather than seriously critiquing the story.

To say that one is impressed that until the last ten minutes of the show the sideways universe could have been real or an afterlife is ludicrous since the rules of the sideways universe were made up along the way and never made sense in terms of the the real (island) universe -- we were just trusting that someday they would reveal how it does make sense. But they never did! It just became an afterlife, where anything can happen.

And, as you all did (thankfully) point out, they did everything they could (including the hokey candy bar bit with Juliet) to make us think for the entire season that "it worked". I was glad that at least some of you said you understood that major "disconnects" such as this (Jughead not doing nearly as much as we were nose-lead to believe) can be "disappointing".

I disagree, however, that much of the blame for the failings of the show is due to the episodic nature of TV -- and thus how a novelization would be so much better and that you'd read it. I certainly have no interest in reading a novelization (which usually is tremendously non-canon; just some hack writer's fill-ins). Yes, you're right that there is always going to be some trade off in "the way the story was told" to keep you entertained hour by hour -- but that is not sufficient to justify what they did to the story overall. Most of the blame lies elsewhere... even if we never find out what it was. (Heck, we can't even figure out if the ending was or was not JJ's -- how can we believe ANYTHING Darlton says at this point?)

Haven't been around for the last little while because I'm tired of arguing with people about the finale. Just wanted to pop in and say hello and thank Ryan for the thousandth time for this amazing blog and give all the regulars a high five.

Oh, and Op/Con? I think maybe you should start your own blog soon. Your posts are rivaling Ryan's entries in word count!

Wow! I found that listening to four people talk themselves into liking, what was at the very least, a disappointing series finale, very amusing.

I laughed a lot, but I look forward to the real podcast!

Will I find myself "going back" and watching LOST (like Firefly, Angel, Arrested Development, X-Files or other series)? Probably not.

You guys went out on a high note, Ryan. The last podcast simply left me wanting more. I've managed to cut waaaay back on the writing about lost, both here and abroad, but I still haven't been able to cut back on the thinking about Lost. Can't wait for you and Mo and Noel to dissect NCIS: LA.

@Op/Con: I was about to write by why I think my jughead theory is correct, and then I realized, "Wait a second, I have no more evidence than he does."

And I never will. What's done is done, and what happened, happened, and now we have all the evidence we're ever gonna get. One theory is as good as another. And, man, is that going to take some getting used to.

Guess I feel like even a core bomb, as Sayid called it, would likely do massive damage to the Island, and would have meant that no hatch would have ever been built on that site.

But I also think the Island managed to survive all these years not because it's power allows it to survive or absorb a nuclear blast, but rather that the island's power is to make sure that a nuclear blast never goes off in the first place (a la Jack & Richard and the dynamite).

Couple other things: We know the Island snatched them abck to 77 without the aide of nuclear power in the first place, via the white light that filled the plane. And then that same white light filled our screen when we thought Jughead went off. And, finally, the series ended with that same white light filling the church.

So, I'm sort of a White Light shipper now.

What I think is dividing people about the finale is that so many people, including most of you guys in the podcast (lova ya all anyway), are judging the series too much by the finale.

I mean of course the finale couldn't provide a lot of answers, by that point it was too late or else it would have made the finale too plodding. But that doesn't excuse season 6 as a whole for not coming together more clockwork-like.

Remember the episode where they had Anthony Cooper appear in a magic box (!) and then Richard, who in season 6 was retconned to be very nice, said Locke had to kill Cooper to become leader of The Others? How is the show allowed to just make random MAJOR stuff up like that and then be excused for not even addressing it again. Just because you thought the finale was nice?

@Op/Con - I'm still catching up with all this (and getting annoyed as it means I'm so far behind in all the discussions in the blog's 'final week') but I'm glad you spotted my post on an ageing thread ;)

I'm guessing the proposal to go back and watch the series and adding to Ryan's episode summaries isn't going to be so popular now.

Now that the dust has settled on the series a bit, I'd say I was more happy than not about the finale and series as a whole. I liked the payoff of the finale and did enjoy the reveal of what the sideways was. For me, Lost's dual storytelling motif was a huge part of the fun of the show and for that to be turned into a mystery itself was enjoyable. I'm also glad that the show seemed to stick to two of it's fundamental 'rules' of whatever happened, happened and dead is dead - which would not have been the case if it was a real epilogue (but I'll step back from that can o' worms).

I really enjoyed the discussion in the podcast about how viewing the show on dvd would compare to tv.

Personally I saw the Pilot when over in NY when it premiered but then burned through season one on dvd in a weekend prior to it airing over in the UK. From then on, watched it weekly, either on tv or online. After getting season five as a christmas present I then started from the Pilot again and have been making my way through (hoping to have gone all the way through prior to The End, but had just managed to get to second half of season five again).

They definitely give you different viewing experiences. Season three stands up exceptionally well on viewing as a number of episodes together.

One thing that will be Lost (ahem) for new viewers though will be thinking time. Time between episodes to mull over what you've seen, postulate theories, make (sometimes correct!) conclusions etc - that's been one of the best aspects of Lost for me - and something I'm not getting from any show on tv now (sob!)

I'm not sure how rewatching will stand up knowing how it all ends - but I don't think I'll view it as negatively as some folk are saying i.e. just because we don't know the Others backstory doesn't make it worthless watching them from season two onwards.

Another bit of fence-sitting I'm doing is emo vs answers. I too am getting tired of critics painting people as being one or the other. Personally I really was into the characters but the thing that exercised my brain was the mythology (what did the numbers mean, why did some Losties go to 1977) rather than 'how will kate an sawyer get out of those bear cages'. And the show just didn't deliver on some fairly large answers.

One final point which was mentioned in the podcast and I've seen it mentioned on posts too - being able to draw conclusions to outstanding questions from evidence provided in the show...

Ryan - any chance of starting a thread for us to bounce a few questions and ideas around. I loved Schmoker's (I think??) reasoning behind pregancy issues on island being influenced by Jacob so that Juliet would come to the island - and it was something I would never have come to myself - it would be cool if other issues could be raised - and might provide folks with a bit better sense of satisfaction from the show - what do you think?

Me, I'd love to know who recorded the original citation of the numbers on the radio transmission...